Australia and New Zealand win Oceania U18s titles

Tournament hosts Australia bounced back from an earlier pool loss to Samoa to beat the Pacific Islanders 32-7 in the final of the Oceania Rugby U18 Boys' Championship at St Ignatius College in Sydney.

As regional champions, Australia's boys will now compete at the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympic Games sevens competition in October if given the go-ahead by their National Olympic Committee (NOC). As per an International Olympic Committee ruling, only one male and one female team can attend the Youth Olympic Games from each nation.

It was not all plain-sailing for Australia, the setback to Samoa having been preceded by a scrappy 29-25 win over the Cook Islands. But they rallied well, scoring 104 points with only five conceded in reply in their final three pool games against the Solomon Islands, Fiji and Tonga.

As well as beating Australia, unbeaten Samoa enjoyed emphatic victories over the Solomon Islands and the Cook Islands and also got the better of Fiji and Tonga in one-score games.

Australia started the final in determined fashion and scored early through Jordan Williams. Less than a minute later Australian captain Jack Walsh crossed for the first of his three tries to make the score 10-0 before Samoa quickly responded with a converted try for Tuna Tuitama. Walsh crossed again, however, to take Australia's lead into double figures at the break.  

In a one-sided second half, Walsh completed his hat-trick and Williams scored a second with Tolu Koula also getting on the scoresheet.

“Obviously we came off a loss against Samoa at the start but from there on we built further. We really bonded well throughout the week and the team came through for each other. It was good to get a win in the last game,” said Walsh.

Fiji defeated Tonga 21-14 in the third place play-off and the Cook Islands finished the weekend strongly with a 41-5 win over the Solomon Islands in the fifth place play-off.

"The rugby standard was unreal, you had no easy games. All the teams were really good and had the ability to win,” Walsh added.